Did you know?
With the Super Bowl game fast approaching, it might be of interest to note that one man, who helped lead the Pittsburgh Steelers to four of their six Super Bowl wins – “Mean” Joe Greene – made a greatly appreciated appearance in Uniontown in October of 1975.
He’d apparently left the “Mean” back in Pittsburgh, because the Uniontown Evening Standard’s staff writer at the time wrote, “Joe Greene made a personal appearance in Uniontown Thursday night and the kids really flocked to see him.”
(By the way, his real name is Charles Edward Greene)
For the record, Greene and his Steel Curtain helped beat the Cleveland Browns, 42-6 the Sunday before he came to town. Three days after his Uniontown visit, the Steelers beat the Denver Broncos, 20-9.
In April of 1942, another fellow known for making “big hits” also made a stop in Uniontown.
Although his big hits were on records.
Canonsburg’s Perry Como was one of three featured singers with the Ted Weems Orchestra that performed on stage at the State Theater on April 2, 1942.
By the way, Perry Como’s real name was Pierino Ronald Como.
One of America’s greatest folk heroes, Daniel Boone, never changed his name.
The noted frontiersman and pioneer, also stopped off in Fayette County.
According to the Morning Herald/Evening Standard’s special Bicentennial Edition that was published on July 2, 1976, “Daniel Boone, the fabled early explorer, was a wagoner with Braddock’s ill-fated expedition in 1775. Several years later, he stopped at Fort Gaddis, just south of Uniontown, on his way west.”
I certainly hope he wasn’t talking about visiting these parts when he famously said, “I can’t say as I ever was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”
Another famed American, also made a stop in Uniontown back in 1942. Although, he’d probably made a lot of stops, because he lived in Connellsville.
When the Connellsville Cokers basketball team took on the Uniontown Red Raiders, the future Heisman Trophy winner – Johnny Lujack – shared game-high scoring honors.
“In a rough and tumble basketball clash, marked by spectacular long shots on the part of the home team that zipped into the net without touching the rim, Connellsville High, defending champions of Section 9, suffered its first league defeat as it bowed to Uniontown, 36-34,” said the coverage in the following morning’s Connellsville Daily Courier.
Lujack, who scored 11 points, seemed to have apparently dazzled the writer of that morning’s article.
“Lujack dribbled through the entire Uniontown club to dump in a two-pointer,” they wrote.
Five years later, Lujack would become the University of Notre Dame’s second Heisman Trophy winner, and the first of two (the second being Ernie Davis) Fayette County Heisman Trophy winners.
The Jan. 20, 1923 edition of the Uniontown Daily News Standard carried a hard-to-believe front page story.
“Wife Shoots Anderson For the Last Time,” was the headline for a story about a man who was apparently on his death bed in Uniontown Hospital after his wife had taken out a .25 caliber revolver and shot him.
It was reported that the man’s wife had shot him before – six times!
The most recent shooting had taken place when she’d caught her husband “with his arms around another girl’s waist.”
After his wife approached, he “had first started to remonstrate, but his protests froze on his lips as the lead began to pierce his face,” the report said.
After she’d performed her act of vengeance, “Mrs. Anderson went to her room, put on her bedroom slippers and walked to York Run. She was located there by County Detective John J. Russell and the New Salem detail of the state police. She offered no resistance and readily gave the county detective an entire statement of the affair,” it was reported.
There are some old newspaper items I’ve come across that confirm what many people have told me over the years.
For a long time, movie houses in Uniontown were segregated.
“The Most Discussed Play In the History of the Theatre – Sixth Year on Broadway – Only Company On Tour – TOBACCO ROAD,” said the ad for the upcoming stage play at the State Theater on January 20th, 1939.
However, some people had to sit in their own section of the theater. “Colored Balc. (Balcony) 50c Both Performances,” said the fine print at the bottom of the ad.
But that hardly was the most egregious example of local entertainment enterprises that reflected a sense of the deep north.
The Dixie Theatre ran an ad for the “Sensational colored singing and dancing revue – Mandy Green From New Orleans,” on April 13, 1928.
The Dixie announced there were “350 Seats Reserved for Colored People,” and that meant “Balcony and 200 seats left side downstairs.”
And for the interests of the rest of the paying public there was a “Center section and right section reserved for white patrons exclusively.”